Amm's Gift

From the desk of Federik Ool

To Your Highness, Emperor Dinestera,

I must apologize for the delay in these reports, events have been getting more and more difficult to sort out of late, however I have finally received word from one of the intelligence agents with whom we had lost contact with, he has filled me in on several events of importance.

First off, some time ago I had my new agents in Westport investigate rumors of “Dragonsquires” in the underground of the city. They turned up an elf acting for Sreenaxa’mrogat, and a group of kobolds supporting Gof’kagur. The kobolds were disbanded, and the elf apprehended. I am following up on the connections to both dragons.

Secondly, regarding the agent with whom I finally recieved word. When we lost contact with him, I thought it a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Test the meddle of my new agents from Westport, and secondly to see if Rylwyn’s grip on your agents is so fully complete as you feared.

The Agent had apparently let himself be captured by a rogue band of ogres, led by a hobgoblin, strangely equipped with elven armor and weaponry from Highvalley. An oddity for a rogue hobgoblin especially. The agent intended to investigate the issue himself, distinguishing it from acts of another outlaw group, who he believed to be the group following the rogue, Quait Highstar, commonly known as Qaystar. Regardless of his intension, my agents rescued him, not knowing what he intended, and just trying to do a good deed.

After that, they decided it time to investigate the unnerving rumor of civil war in Highvalley and see if they could make a connection to the hobgoblin. They recruited the services of a dwarf well versed in dungeoneering for the purpose, and then made a trek from the old elven city ruins east of Skien, through the mines and the old crypt into Highvalley. On the way one of my agents was devoured by a barghest. Unsightly things, and a horrible way to go. There’s no way to recover him, since the corpse was entirely devoured. Apparently the first son of Duke Haitar Skiendor, Brutus attached himself to the party, and subsequently detached himself, in attempt to defeat a summoned demon or devil.

Speaking of which, apparently the rumors of civil war are well founded. Three factions exist in the city: the monastery with whom we have cooperated to keep Gof’kagur in check, the elves under the dragon’s sway who have among them the Fire Giants of Skarra, as well as the highvalley conjurers… a faction we thought suppressed since the beginning of your rule. Lastly, and perhaps most intriguingly, a group who claim to be rebels seeking to slay the dragon.

It is this last faction that would worry me the most, if it weren’t for the existence of the second. It seems the rebellion is not our only trouble, nor is it in cahoots with the dragons as I had once thought. According to our agent, the monks desire military aid in bringing stability to Highvalley. Mention of the dissappearance of his son to Duke Haitar might provide incentive for the skyknights of Skiendor to aid them. Indeed I fear without aerial support, little can be done from the outside, as the canyon roads are well under control of Gof’kagur’s elven puppets and fire giants.

My agents went in different directions from Highvalley. I have yet to receive word from those that I sent from Westport, since they parted ways with our older agent. We shall see what news they bring back.

Big Events in Westport

Sahuagin invasion reportedly caused by the Red Dragon Gof’Kagur. Happened to align with a zombie invasion from the cleric of Mast encountered the last session. Which also happened to align with a slave revolt reportedly started by the rebellion. On top of it all, the orc horde that was camped outside of the city gates, perhaps incited by one of the renegade orc hordes raided the city.

The players faught their way through a few sahuagin and eventually took care of the zombie invasion by disrupting the portal through which they were coming and slaying the cleric. Members of the Guild of Pure and Just magicians were working together to stem the tide.

The rest of the city managed to fight off the sahuagin invasion, but most of the slaves were freed in the chaos. The capital city was reportedly affected by the sahuagin invasion as well.

Bartone Family Trouble, Zombies, and a Strange Cleric

While discussing renovation plans for the warehouse, Throk, an old friend from Aester’s days in the Bartone Family came in to quickly convince Aester to come help out Marlon Kingsley.

After some persuasion, Aester and Chem followed Throk to the store where the trouble was happening. They found the destroyed body of Stupid Tim. They then saw a dim light, investigated, found the bodies of Arh and Sichs sitting on a couch by the fireplace in a back room. The bodies jumped up and attacked.

Some holy water quickly took care of them. They went downstairs, ran into a bunch of skeletons, slowly fought them off with bombs and morning stars, and then ran to Marlon’s aid in the basement. The cleric who had been troubling him became invisible and escaped through a secret door.

Apparently the Bartone Family had been supplying this client with various resources necessary for the performing of necromancy, and wanted to try to up the ante with a little pressure. The meeting went bad and turned into an ambush by the client. They fought, but eventually overwhelmed the Bartone Family members and interrogated Marlon for all the information he had.

Marlon isn’t a lightweight in combat, so his being beaten by the cleric, albeit in an ambush, says something to the danger presented by such a figure.

After the fight Aester was granted a boon, presumably from the god named Imm, a lawful good deity. The boon was his Blackblade, an intelligent rapier that stated its purpose as furthering the cause of Imm’s light.

Marton also gave them his Ring of Protection +1 and the money he had on him, and told them they were welcome to hit up Anton for a favor. He also told Aester that while as long as he wore the family crest on his shoulder he would always be identified as a Bartone Family member, he was “okay” in Marton’s books, despite their history.

My past has given me plenty of reason to be distrustful of people. This new life has helped me to overcome that for the most part, but there are times when that mistrust comes roaring to the forefront. Such an event occurred during our last outing. One of my new acquaintances, a man called Ignatius, displayed some very odd behavior. This included wanting to maintain possession of a clearly necromantic object, demanding more recompense from a merchant despite being offered a more than generous sum and other suspicious acts that I can’t recall at this moment. He quite clearly and obviously cast two separate spells in full view of me during this outing. Given his suspicious activity, I took it upon myself to find his registration card with the Guild. I suppose it’s unsurprising that there wasn’t one to be found. Clearly this man is on the run from someone or something and doesn’t want to be discovered. As he is currently valuable to our mission, I have decided not to turn him in just yet. Instead I confronted him with this fact at our headquarters. In another event that should come as absolutely no surprise but still did (for some reason), he lied to my face and expected me to believe that either 1) I was mistaken and he didn’t actually cast any spells or 2) I just didn’t search hard enough and the registration was there somewhere.

Unfortunately, at this point Chem showed up with an urgent message. It seems he had spotted a monster capable of eating metal headed for the Platinum Guild. Due to the imminent threat this creature posed, we rushed off to put our skills to use. I didn’t want to lose my trusty rapier to this monster, so I left it at headquarters and grabbed one of the pole from the cot to use as a staff. In retrospect, probably not the best idea, but time was short. We raced over to the Platinum Guild, arriving in time to wake the only member present and be shown about half the facilities before the creature ate the front door and burst in. The gnome handler seemed shocked to see us, but wasted no time turning his monster lose on us. The dwarven guildmember was the first to fall victim to the creature’s disintegrating touch, his armor becoming rusted at brittle with just a touch. The gnome hit me with some manner of fire pellets. Not a spell I’m familiar with, but painful nonetheless. I had no desire to relive that, so I cast Color Spray on him and his creature. While the creature seemed unaffected, it hit the gnome full force, dropping him to the ground instantly. With the gnome out of the fight, we were able to concentrate our efforts on the creature. My attempts at combat with the improvised staff were laughable. Good thing Samir wasn’t there to see as I would probably still be in training to make up for it. Despite my lack of prowess with the staff, we were able to subdue the creature and bind both it and the gnome. The dwarven guildmember gave us a very generous amount of platinum in thanks for saving the facility. About this time, the gnome awoke from the effects of my spell. Ignatius convinced him that there were more similar monsters to be had to the north and the gnome quite agreeably wandered off to find them.

Upon our arrival, we were met by a woman who wanted us to assist her in the removal of some large wasps from their trade route. Seems they had killed several of their employees. The pay seemed good and the cause worthwhile, but I was low on spell power and the others wanted to nurse injuries they had sustained. Ignatius remembered that these insects are most likely to be asleep at night, so we agreed to take off the following evening after we had a chance to recover.

Once in the woods, we wandered around looking for a possible hiding spot for large wasps. Chem eventually spotted an enormous hive in the branches of a tree. He tossed one of his amazing fire bombs at it, setting the entire thing alight. Not surprisingly, the wasps immediately went on the offensive. The shocking part was just how big these things were. I was expecting large, but these things made stallions look small. Large in reference to a wasp typically means something perhaps the size of your hand. Calling these things large is like calling a Hill Giant a large person. While it may be accurate in the strictest sense of the word, it really doesn’t do the word justice.

Anyway, four of these monstrous insects descended upon us and began to assail us. I quickly cast a Shield spell for a bit of defense. These things were so large and terrifying that my memory of the whole event is somewhat fuzzier than usual. I know that my rapier skills did not fail me, and I managed to skewer the insect attacking me before he got in a shot. When he did land his strike, though, it was one I felt for several days after. While not painful enough to cause me to lose consciousness, I could feel the poison coursing through me, and I was struggling to stay upright. Regardless, I finished my opponent off before I turned my attention to the remainder of the battlefield. It was at this point that I realized that Chem’s ire bomb had had a rather unintended effect. The massive tree to which the hive had been attached was now engulfed in flames. A flaming branch from one of the trees crashed onto one of the wasps, but it remained undeterred in its desire to slaughter us all. One of the guards that was with us at this point had collapsed from his wounds. Given that the others had their respective opponents under control and the fact that the fire would kill the guard if he remained, I pulled him out of danger. Using the last of my healing potions, I got him stabilized. About this time, the others finished off the remaining insects and ran over to me. Using another potion, we got the guard on his feet and proceeded back to Westport for some much needed rest. House Allen expressed their extreme gratitude for our heroic efforts with a princely sum. Perhaps I will begin to turn our warehouse into something more closely resembling a business. Time shall tell.

a fiery death for flora and fauna

Our night began still with a warm-winded chill
as we made our fair way to the forge,
yet in no time at all the steel doors did they fall
with a fierce foul beast, steel engorged.

When my spells went awry how I thought we would die
or at least have our metals be eaten,
but another spell slinger cast a colorful ringer
and that hairy small gnome fell beaten.

The moons lay asleep as we made our retreat
to our slanty and empty ole shack.
And there stood a-waitin’ with doom in her gazin’
a message of yellow and black.

That ever next even’ we took to a-stealin’
away in the forest outside.
With a great fiery blast and a fight to the last
monstrous pests lay defeated and died.

Still ever if I see another fat bee
I’ll scream like a little schoolgirl
and run for the hills and the adamantium mills
and through to the other side of the world.

Blast! Is there no rest for a simple reader? All these interruptions, murderous monster wasps and metal-eating rust beasts and who knows what the morrow will bring?! A bee sting is one thing, but if the stinger is as long as my forearm, I must object. Were it not for the smelly chemist’s concoctions falling by chance into my gaping mouth, I wonder if I would have stayed to burn in that forest. Something exhilarating about the blood moving so quickly, though – I had never wielded the Mundus Blade with such fervor! It was as if my swinging fanned the flames with the very winds of Mast.

Still, one does tire of such adventures day in and day out. I look forward to finding a neglected corner of the city to settle down and read. I also have to think about what tales I’ll bring to Tennifer’s this Uvain.

I found some books the other day at the bazaar. Nothing of great interest, just some amateurish scripts and a book of collected children’s rhymes. There has been some progress with that bloody Guild, as well. At least so long as our halfing business partner puts in her word with the Duchess Allan. I tire of waiting. If things don’t move along from now, it may be time to take matters into my own hands.

One note of concern. It seems that one of my companions in this city, Aester Bumblewit or what have you, has been snooping around in the records of his twice-damned Guild of Foolish and Frenetic Magic. I’ll have to come up with some sort of escape plan if things go against me. I don’t believe he’d mention my identity to the authorities, but still, to question my name, what a fool! The less he figures out the better.

Rust, Wayward Gnomes, Murder Wasps, and forest fires...

Chem arrived at the warehouse, reported evidence of a monster that destroys metal and eats the rust that remains.
Everyone agreed to race toward the Adamantium facility to try to stop it from doing too much damage.
They met Droyn, a raspy voiced dwarf who was working late. He showed them around.
In the midst of the introduction the steel door to the facility disentigrated, revealing a gnome leading the monster. Combat broke out. The PCs won. They agreed to let the facility keep the creature in exchange for keeping quiet about the incident to the authorities, lest it be known they were keeping such a dangerous abberation. They also earned a solid pound of platinum bullion worth 500 gp.

As they were arriving back at the warehouse after the incident, tired and weary, the sun rose and they discovered the uncommon sight of a patron standing outside their door.

The second patron, Gayl Faring Mastos, a halfling lady working under the auspices of House Allan, wanted help with a wasp problem. After describing her problem everyone agreed they needed to rest, and would venture out on the evening of the same day.

They arrived near the location reported to be troubled and explored the area, discovering the wasps nesting in a giant tree, 30 feet up its trunk. Chem threw a firebomb at the nest, igniting it and dealing them all a great amount of damage, but also waking up all 4 and enraging them.

The ensuing combat was nearly fatal, but their heroic feats finally brought down the vermin and the forest around them. It also cost them most if not all of the healing potions they had accumulated, and earned them a remarkable 20 red minutes in payment from Gayl upon their return to the city. She also made a promise to try to put in a good word with the head of House Allan for Ignatius, who was very interested in access to the guild of papers inner library.

I’ve been somewhat remiss in my journal entries lately. During our last adventure, we had an encounter with a rather nasty slime creature. I nearly died during that battle and was left with some manner of disease in the aftermath. I only recently recovered thanks to the efforts of Chem and Alek and the care of some local clerics.

In any event, having recovered as much as I was likely to, I left the confines of guild headquarters and ventured back to our new base of operations. I should mention, at this point, that we only encountered the slime because we were searching for a building to occupy our new pest extermination business. Mr. Federick Ool wished to have us pose as exterminators in order to provide him with information on members of the rebellion. Something about Ool’s manner and requests strikes me as a bit suspicious and not the least bit trustworthy. The guild seems to agree, however, they want me to use this opportunity to gain information on Ool for them. Combine that with the rebellion’s offer and I’m now, what? A triple agent? Anyway, I don’t see this situation lasting too terribly long. I’m not one to go about lying, so something has to give – probably sooner rather than later. For the time being, however, my past may be in danger of catching up to me. This new extermination business is very likely to put me back in the same circles I once frequented. If it does, things could become ugly very quickly.

In any event, I arrived at the new extermination warehouse about the same time as Chem. Alek was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he understands the current situation better than I and has taken his leave. I wouldn’t blame him. The whole business is rather detestable. Shortly thereafter, Ignatius made an appearance. I hadn’t seen him since our initial encounter with Elben in the market. As we stood there chatting, a rather nervous man from the Potter’s Guild arrived to inquire about our services. It seemed that they had an infestation of particularly large rats in their basement and Lord Allan (who apparently has some connection to that particular guildhouse) was coming to inspect it the next day. Pay for the extermination of these pests was to be 400gp, less any damage to their goods. A very handsome pay in anyone’s estimation. Ignatius seemed somewhat insulted by the offer, and saw fit to argue for more money. I’m not certain exactly why. 400 is a princely sum, and was a more than suitable reward for the work involved.

I managed to convince him to take the job at the offered rate, and we immediately headed to the Potter’s Guild to see to the job. Once inside, we were shown the stairs to the basement and also the elevator. We opted for the stairs. We encountered the rats almost immediately upon our descent into the basement. Chem proved quite the crack shot with his crossbow, perfectly skewering three of the beasts. I dealt with the fourth.

Having rid the guild of their rodents (without collateral damage, I might add!), we proceeded to examine the remainder of the basement. It seemed that the rats had burrowed through one of the walls toward the rear of the chamber. There, Ignatius noticed that one of the plates on display was rather distinct from the remainder. It was black on one side and white on the other, with a bone motif on the face. Ignatius gave it a thorough magical examination, and noted that it was embued with necromantic magic. Being exactly the type of item that would be of interest to both the Magic Guild and Mr. Ool, I readily agreed that it should come with us. Worryingly, Ignatius seemed to favor keeping the item for our own use. After arguing for a moment, we determined that we could work out what to do with the plate afterwards, but it definitely needed to be taken. As soon as Chem picked up the plate, the necromantic energy animated the corpses of the rodents we had just slain and we were forced to dispatch them a second time. They proved to be much more resiliant this time around, nearly killing Ignatius. Fortunately, Chem and I were up to the task and Chem was able to revive Ignatius with one of his handy healing potions. It seemed that the reanimated rodents were a bit much for Ignatius as he was now in favor of smashing the plate then and there. Chem and I talked him out of it and we proceeded upstairs for our payment. Sadly, during the second battle some of th pottery was broken, meaning that our pay was reduced. Ignatius again made a quite vehement arguement for more pay, going so far as to smash one of the pots over the head of a guild member.

That business concluded, we then had to rid ourselves of the plate. Part of me wanted to deliver it to the Magic Guild, but both causes would likely be advanced by handing it over to Ool. Chem and I proceeded to the Archives and met with Ool. He seemed every bit as repulsed by the plate as we were, but was appreciative of our efforts. No reward was forthcoming, although that may change depending on the outcome of their investigations. Curiously, Ignatius opted not to join us when we went to deliver the plate. While he may be a valuable ally, his motives and allegiances are certainly suspect. I will definitely need to keep my eye on him from now on.

The rats... they're so big!

LOG Outline:

After a week of recovery from their fight in the swamp with stirges their wounds were healed and their constitutions restored, they got back to their routines, taking turns manning the yet unnamed and unsigned business front in the Salt Ward. On the 8th day after that event, Chem and Aester both wind up in the warehouse only to find Alek absent, where he should be at his post.

After but a moment they see the bard from their very first encounter with the ogre and Elben and Mr. Argent. He comes in and they begin discussing the details of their arrangement. After a few minutes of discussion a guildsman from the pottery guild comes in and requests help with rats.

“Please help me, I can offer good gold! I’m a foreman at the pottery guild and we’re having a terrible problem with a vermin infestation. The city guard already refused to help, they said we’d have to take care of it ourselves… but the rats, they’re so big, and they bite!” He shows you a nasty, possibly infected looking bite mark on his leg.

“Our orders are all backlogged and we can’t get in and out of our storage to start fulfilling them until this problem is dealt with. What’s worse is that Lord Allan is coming from the capital to check into the situation tomorrow.”

The guildsman will offer the PCs 400 gold if they can clear out the infestation and stop the rats from coming back. Unfortunately he says it’s a delicate job and he can only offer the full reward if none of their stock is damaged. The PCs discover the shop or possibly entire guild is owned or managed by House Allan.

PCs investigate, find rats hiding behind the various rows of pottery. Kill them with rapier and crossbow. Discover a strange plate among the display shelves that radiates faint auras of evocation and necromancy. After deciding to take it with them, Chem picks it up and accidentally activates its necromantic magic, immediately animating the dead dire rats as zombie rats, bolstered by the desecration powers of the plate.

They manage to kill the rats, but not without Ignatius getting knocked out of combat and Chem retreating into a hole and throwing a risky bomb very fortunately destroying only a single pot in the process. While in the hole he discovered a red spinel and a illegible note soiled with rat refuse.

With 4 pots destroyed (1 being used to threaten the guildsman who brought them the job) they received an award of 320 gold, sold the red spinel for 180 gold, and handed the plate into Federik Ool in hope of a reward. Each PC participating received 765 experience. All the PCs received a retroactive story award of 100 xp per session attended. Alek should add 200 experience points to his XP.

and broken pottery

The rats this day
They came to play
A basement, dark
No simple lark
Kind crosser’s bow
Brought those rats low
A jolly piercing
O! How endearing!
The spoken word
With us entered

Our task complete
A fleeting feat
Cause still to come,
Our work undone!
Cursed rats arise
Attack’s reprise
In danger, dire
Swords, bitings, fire,
An end at last
And pottery smashed!

If I never see a rat again it’ll be too soon. Damn them all, and damn them twice, so that they won’t return to bother me. Something strange, though, certainly. In such a controlled, carefully-watched city (ha!), a foul dish of necromantic atrocity shouldn’t be just laying around in a den, even if it is run by incompetent fools. The Guild of Potters, my foot!

What a distraction. I need to find a way into those Archives! Those damn paper-pushers at the Guild of Papers, how dare they keep tomes of knowledge all to themselves. As if someone wouldn’t want the good-hearted, Empire-loving public to know something! Ha.

Must keep an eye on my newfound “compatriots.” They seem useful enough, but I dislike their visits to the Imperial district. Makes me nervous. I don’t think it’s yet time for me to move on, however. I still need to find a way to get a hold of that book referred to in Historie le Familie Dinestra. I am not sure, but it seems to have some interesting lore about earlier days of the Dinesteras, something about dragons. If such a beast truly existed, which I still doubt.

We got some good coin from our exploits today, though. Such a loathsome necessity. My poor mother would be cross with me for taking such a pittance for my efforts, but when one has to eat, well, one has to eat.